The Last Piece of the Tree Job
When a tree comes down, the stump usually stays. The tree crew packs up, the yard looks better, and that flat round of wood sits there for years.
In Marin it rarely sits quietly. Redwood and eucalyptus stumps push up new shoots, sometimes a whole ring of them, and you end up pruning a tree you already paid to take out. Oak and bay stumps go soft and turn into a home for ants and fungus. And on a sloped lot, the stump is usually right where you wanted the retaining wall, the deck stairs or the vegetable beds.
Grinding takes care of it, most of the time in one visit. We grind the stump out below the surface, deal with the surface roots around it, and leave the spot ready for whatever goes there next.
What We Do
Stump GrindingOur main job. We grind stumps of any size below grade, then rake out, haul off or backfill the chips the way you want. One stump or a whole yard full.Stump Grinding →
Stump RemovalBuilding over the spot? A foundation, a slab or a pool needs more than a ground-down stump. We dig out the whole stump and the big roots under it, so the builder starts on clean dirt.Stump Removal →
Root GrindingLeftover roots from an old tree that lift the walkway, ripple the lawn or trip people on the way to the door get ground down flat.Root Grinding →Why Marin Homeowners Call Us
- We plan for access. Narrow side yards, steps and hillside lots come with working in Marin, so we size up the route to the stump before we quote.
- You pick the depth. A lawn needs a few inches of clean soil, a new tree needs a lot more room. We grind to match what's going there.
- You pick what happens to the chips. Back in the hole, hauled off the property, or left by the beds as mulch.
How It Works
- Call us. Let us know the number of stumps, about how wide they are, and where they sit on the property.
- We look at the route. Gates, steps, slope, fences. We work out how to get the grinder to the stump without tearing up the yard, then give you a price.
- We grind. A small stump is often done within the hour. A big redwood or eucalyptus can take a few.
- We finish the spot. Chips handled the way you asked, the hole filled if you want it filled, and the area raked out before we go.
Before and After a Stump Grind
BeforeAfterAn example of what grinding does: the same front lawn, before and after. Drag the handle to compare.
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Marin's tree mix shows up in its stumps. Redwoods in the canyons of Mill Valley and Larkspur, where the shoots come back every spring if nobody grinds them out. Eucalyptus on the hills above San Rafael and Novato. Oaks and bays behind Fairfax and San Anselmo, a lot of them lost to Sudden Oak Death. Old fruit trees and ornamentals in the flatter yards of Corte Madera and Kentfield.
The bigger difference is the ground. Hillside lots in Sausalito and Tiburon mean stairs, retaining walls and tight paths between houses. We work the whole county, from Novato down to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Common Questions
Bay Area prices run above the national averages you'll find online. What moves the price is the width of the stump, the kind of wood, the number of stumps and how hard they are to reach. A big redwood at the bottom of a staircase costs more than a small ornamental in a flat front yard. We give you one firm price after we see it, and we tell you up front whether hauling the chips away adds anything.
A standard grind goes a few inches below grade, which is plenty for grass, a flower bed or pavers. If you're planting a new tree, setting a fence post or building anything there, let us know before we start. We can go deeper, or we'll recommend stump removal instead, where the root ball comes out completely. Either way you'll know the plan before the grinder starts.
That's a big share of Marin jobs. Backyard stump grinders are compact enough to fit through most garden gates and down a path, and on steep ground we take it slow and set up carefully. Every lot is different, so we look at the route first: gate width, steps, slope and anything we need to protect along the way. If a machine truly can't get there, we'll tell you straight.
Many won't. Redwoods and eucalyptus are the big exceptions in Marin, since both sprout from the stump and the roots, and bays and live oaks can send up shoots too. Grinding below grade takes out the part that does most of the sprouting. If a few shoots pop up the next season, clip them low and they'll run out of energy. Grinding the surface roots around the old stump helps too.
Rake out most of the grindings first, then fill the hole with topsoil and pack it down. Seed it or lay sod the same week. Expect the spot to sink an inch or two over the next few months as buried wood breaks down, so keep a bag of soil around and top it off once. After that you won't be able to pick it out from the rest of the lawn.